Publish a book with us
Authors wishing to publish a book with the Society may submit a proposal to the Publications Committee, which meets three times a year. Proposals must be submitted to the Managing Editor (publications@socantscot.org) at least two weeks before the committee meeting.
We ask that the following elements be included in any proposals:
1) Project information
The number of words, illustrations and tables. These can be approximate, but this information helps us to determine costs and production schedules.
Funding information. The Society publishes books on a not-for-profit basis. While funding is not a requirement for publishing with the Society, we would expect that authors will have made all reasonable efforts to attract funding to their projects before approaching the Society.
Please note that the use of full colour illustrations throughout costs considerably more than production in black and white (or production with colour plates). As such, in most circumstances we cannot accept publication of full colour books without a minimum 70% external funding.
Author schedule. We ask that authors provide a realistic schedule, letting the Society know when their manuscript will be ready for peer review and editing. Please keep in mind factors such as collating contributors' and specialist reports, gaining copyright permissions, etc.
2) A précis of the work
This should span 1-3 sides of A4 and cover the nature and importance of the project as well as the potential market for the book.
3) The Table of Contents
We prefer that this includes a 1-2 sentence summary for each chapter as well as an estimate of the number of words in each chapter.
4) Additional material
Authors who already have sections of text prepared should submit them to the Managing Editor along with the proposal.
FUNDING
There are a number of organisations that offer grants toward research and publication, and we strongly encourage all authors to explore funding opportunities as fully as possible before submitting a proposal to the Society. While we cannot provide exhaustive guidance on funding, some of our previous authors have obtained grants to help with publication costs from organisations such as the Strathmartine Trust, the Marc Fitch Fund, the Robert Kiln Fund, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Pasold Research Fund and the Paul Mellon Centre.
